Sorry for my strange title, but my question cover kind of a wide area.But my topic is so to speak relevant for hundres of thousands and maybe millions of computer gamers.

Introduction.
Everyone love to play computer games, and alot of you have several games with different activation systems.
Some simply use steam ( worry free activation and licence control ) other buy a cd with a key.
But once in a while you come across games that use various types of game protection software that read
your computers Unique " hardware ID" code and use your key and Hardware ID to prevent prevent people from activating the game on several different pc's.

The Problems..:

I own many games, and one of my favorite games use such a game protection software.
The game it self is a download, and it uses an online activation system named "starforce"
The problem is that I often change hardware or fool around with my computers hardware, and then my computer hardware change, meaning that everytime i do this the game/copy protection think that now im using a new computer that the game was not original installed on.
The result of this is that I loose 1 activation "token" and once i done this 5 times I need to buy the game again.
I even loose one if I remember to "unlicence" / uninstall my game first.. Meaning no matter what after 5 times my key expires and I have to buy my favorite game again ( I did that 3 timers now ).

I did actually contact the support deppartment and spoke to som very rude and arrogant support people from Russia if I could have my key reactivated. I even clearly told them that I as a client did not know about any limitations and key activations limits when i bought the game since you cannot read about it anywhere when you install the game or during the purchase process or installation, it is not even written in the huge legal text that "protect" the game.. You first find out once you have uninstalled/formatted your computer or changed hardware...
But they do not care at all, its all about business i think..

Anyway, im tired of paying for my legal product again and again... and I kind of think about replacing my 3 legal copys with a pirated version now..... But before I do that I want to ask for advice since I have 3 activation attempts left.

What can i do about my "problem" I just want to use my LEGAL computer game but the copy protection so to speak "rob people" and so to speak force people to find another non legal version of a game.
I do want to support the gaming industry but i feel kind of RAPED and treatment badly.

The only sollutions I can come up with is.:
1). buy the game on steam or other place where there is no key.. ( not possible game is not sold there )
2). clone or fake my computers Hardware ID so that everytime I want to install or run my software that I can "fake" my Hardware ID and make my computer look like the old one. Will that solve my problen, and how can i do that ??
2). Can i maybe use some kind of virtual machine and install my game and so to speak always have the same hardware ID in the future ??
3). what about some kind of hardware ID emulator ? ( dont know if it excists )

Starforce activation hasn't been used for quite some time now though, so I'm guessing this is a fairly old game?

If you could determine what exactly Starforce is looking for, it may be possible to clone. My first guess would be MAC address, and my 2nd guess would be the SID (generated by Windows during install). I don't think either is very easy to change though, at least deep enough for Starforce not to detect it.

You could try running the game from within VMware Workstation or VirtualBox as they do offer some hardware acceleration, but I doubt the game will play as well.

Honestly, I would just move onto another game. Don't support this developer at all. If they insist on using Starforce, they should of at least had a decent support team to reset your key when necessary.

If you want to try playing in a virtual machine, I believe you can use free tools to convert a physical installation to virtual (P2V) for use in the free VMware Player, which supports DX9 acceleration in XP and up. You won't get native GPU speed, but it might suffice for older games.